Police have investigated 27 reports of rape and 34 other sex crimes as well as 344 alleged crimes of violence at Forest Bank prison since 2018.
They were among 1,648 crimes reported at the troubled, privately-operated prison in five years, according information obtained by the M.E.N.
Last month an M.E.N. investigation into Forest Bank prison uncovered allegations of widespread drug use and inmates who 'run the wings', prompting an MP and Salford's mayor to write to the government to demand an 'urgent' review.
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Our revelations included a call from Salford and Eccles MP Rebecca Long-Bailey for the Ministry of Justice to cancel a billion pound contract it has with Sodexo to run the troubled jail.
Sodexo's contract to run the prison ends on January 19, 2025. Back in 1998, it was awarded a deal worth £1,006,771,964 to design, build and run the prison built on the site of the former Agecroft power station under a private finance initiative to house a maximum 1,064 inmates. The deal was to last 25 years, before being extended.
The facilities management giant, founded and based in France, runs six prisons in England and Scotland, and last year recorded revenues of 21.1 billion euros, including 'underlying operating profit' of more than a billion euros, up 83 per cent.
Now, using freedom of information legislation, the M.E.N. has uncovered the scale of reported crime at the prison since 2018.
Greater Manchester Police confirmed to us it received 1,648 reports of crime at the prison from 2018. In 2018, there were 219 reports of crime at the prison, rising to 238 in 2019 and then to 395 in 2020. It reached a peak in 2021 when there were 539 reports of crime before falling back to 257 reported offences in 2022.
During the five years, there were 666 so-called 'crimes against society' where there is no identifiable victim, the largest crime type in the figures. The next largest group of crimes is 'stalking and harassment' - there were 419 reports of such crimes at the prison during the five years.
The figures also revealed there were 27 reports of rape at the prison during the period, with three in 2018, six in 2019, 13 in 2020, two in 2021 and three last year, and 35 'other sexual offences'.
One experienced former prison officer who worked at Forest Bank told the M.E.N. sex crimes could be committed when inmates attempted to retrieve parcels of drugs which had been hidden in intimate areas of the body.
The figures also show 344 violent crimes reported during the period (three reported robberies, 152 acts of violence that didn't end in injury and 189 violent acts that did end in injury).
Despite widespread reports that drug use is rife in the prison, only eight reports of possession of drugs were recorded in the period.
An HMP Forest Bank spokesperson said. "We are committed to reducing violence at HMP Forest Bank and work closely with law enforcement agencies to ensure the safety of all who live and work there."
The M.E.N. investigation published last month, based on allegations from a whistleblower, an ex-prisoner and his father and the family of a grandfather who died in his cell, exposed what Ms Bailey branded a 'culture of lawlessness' at the jail.
We revealed that:
- Drugs are rife, smuggled in via 'legal letters' and inmates are 'off their tits a lot of the time'
- Inmates brew their own hooch
- Violence is commonplace and inmates 'run the wings'
- Staff feel 'unsafe' and a lone guard can be 'left to guard 100-plus inmates'
- Staff have to buy 'their own uniform because of cost-cutting'
- A desperate father paid off a drug dealer on his addict son's wing because 'staff didn't protect him'
Over the years, the Manchester Evening News has consistently reported on issues at the prison, including how the prison vowed to crackdown on the use of smuggled phones in the prison after we reported how prisoners captured shocking acts of drug-fuelled cruelty inside the prison in 2016, and inmates pretending to be fighting dogs. A guard resigned in the same year after he was caught watching porn on a wing computer. We also reported how a prison officer was jailed for smuggling spice into the prison and two other guards were imprisoned for stealing electronics from the prison workshop, both in 2021, and how inmates used illicit phones to shoot a rap video earlier this year.
And, in May last year, a damning report by the chief inspector of prisons concluded the jail was 'unable to fulfil its role successfully' following an unannounced visit three months earlier.
The scathing conclusion came despite the Ministry of Justice slapping the prison with a 45-day improvement notice the previous year. But the troubles at Forest Bank haven't put the government off rewarding Sodexo. Although no decision has been made on any new contract at Forest Bank, Sodexo will take over from G4S to run HMP Altcourse in Merseyside in June on a ten-year deal worth £260m.
Management at Forest Bank have previously said the prison was making 'steady progress' in the wake of the inspectorate report - but our investigation lays bare serious concerns.
In our expose, a Prison Service spokesperson told us: "Privately-run prisons are among the best performing across the estate and have been consistently praised by independent inspectors."
The latest figures provided to the M.E.N. by Greater Manchester Police came with a caveat which stated that the address recorded for some crimes may not be where that crime happened, for instance where a crime happened in a street but an address in that street was used as the location.
The M.E.N. requested information on crimes said to have taken place at the prison and GMP said it searched its data for an address which included 'Forest Bank' or the prison's full postcode, and also included 'HMP' or 'prison'.
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